


Sometime Around Midnight

by Skyson



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Jeffrey Mace POV, Mace x Daisy, Song Inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:19:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyson/pseuds/Skyson
Summary: Daisy Johnson is the famous superhero known as Quake and Jeffrey Mace is an investigative reporter for the Daily Bugle. One night, they meet in a hotel restaurant.





	Sometime Around Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by The Airborne Toxic Event song “Sometime Around Midnight”.  
> Rated M (language, drinking, sexual themes)

* * *

 

It starts sometime around midnight. You’re minding your own, sitting in the empty hotel bar while some admittedly decent pianist plays a melancholy tune in the far corner. It’s just you, the musician, and the bartender, at least until she arrives. She makes the room spin the first time you see her, and it has nothing to do with the third glass of Jameson you’re nursing. You know her immediately, of course; she’s famous. In fact, you’ve just seen her a few hours ago, from where you sat in the back of the courtroom while she verbally manhandled her way through a butchering of a senate hearing.

She’s fighting to get legislation pushed through regarding Inhuman rights. And you know you’re fucking starry-eyed right now but you’re too drunk to help it. You stare unashamedly as she slips into a chair a few spots down the bar and quietly orders a gin and tonic. In the back of your mind you note that, just as you note the white dress she wears; the way the fabric hugs her curves and the lack of sleeves reveals her strength. She hadn’t worn this at the hearing, but the outfit is a statement of itself — she is proud of her womanhood, but she is classy and modest in the way she expresses it.

Damn it, even drunk you can’t turn off your damn analyzing brain.

“Am I going to read in the paper tomorrow about how I was spied drowning my sorrows alone in the hotel bar?”

She doesn’t look toward you as she speaks, accepting her drink from the bartender with a gentle smile.

The barman, to his credit, turns and moves to the far end of the counter, minding his own as he returns to cleaning glassware.

“I’m sorry?” You stumble, startled by her voice, and quickly jerk your eyes down toward your drink.

“You’re press, right? I saw you today, sitting in the courtroom. The little spiral notebook is cute — I didn’t think people did that anymore.” She has a smirk playing at her lips and you know she is teasing you, but you don’t mind it at all.

“That’s a little too tabloid, for my tastes,” You reply, sounding far more casually confident than you feel. It makes her smile, though, which lifts your spirits a little. “I’m an investigative journalist. Besides,” You tilt your glass in her direction, “I’m off-duty.”

You can see her considering that for a moment, and then she gets up out of her seat and comes closer. She sits in the seat right next to yours, and you can smell her perfume. It’s elegant in a way that makes you wonder if she’s older than she’s let on.

“I’m Daisy,” She introduces herself, and then smirks. The glint in her eyes takes your breath away. “But you already know that.”

“Yeah.” You reply dumbly. She blinks, one of those expressive eyebrows quirking upward, and you mentally kick yourself. “I’m Jeffrey. Jeffrey Mace.”

You reach across yourself with your right hand, and you don’t know what you expect when she takes it, but you still find yourself surprised by the firmness of her handshake.

Then you remember what she can do with those hands, and you swallow and hope your skin doesn’t feel clammy. ( _Her_  skin is soft, curiously calloused in a way that makes you also remember that she knows her way around a firearm.)

When she finally releases your handshake, you have to surreptitiously wipe your palm against your pant leg before you reach for your glass.

“Are you afraid of me, Mr. Mace?” She wonders, calmly sipping her drink.

“No.” You answer immediately, honestly. She seems surprised by this, and your drink-addled brain remembers another thing — she’s an expert at understanding micro expressions and gauging heart rates. “You can call me Jeffrey, by the way. Mr. Mace is my Pop.”

“So tell me, Jeffrey,” Your name on her lips makes your heart skip, again, “are you pro, or against this legislation?”

“I’m for it, of course.” You say as if that’s the only thing that makes sense, because of course it is. “Inhumans deserve the same rights as anyone else in this country.”

She is definitely surprised by that response, and she turns a little more toward you, her knee pressing lightly against your own. She acts as if that is insignificant, but it’s not insignificant to you.

“Isn’t that a little too firm a stance for someone in your job profession? Don’t you have to be outside of the issue; unbiased?”

“That’s why I work on a team. We all gather intel, we pool it together and then write the story. The secret, Ms. Johnson,” You lean a little toward her, a small smile on your face, “Is that no story is ever unbiased. The trick is to provide as much context possible, let the people decide.”

“All right, Bob Woodward,” She’s teasing you again, but you can see that she’s also impressed.

“I don’t look that old, do I?” You jokingly complain, and she’s smiling with that glint in her eyes again. You’re painfully aware of the grey starting to sneak its way through your hair, and the deepening crow’s feet at your eyes, but the way she’s looking at you now makes you feel like you’re thirty again. Not that you’re all that far beyond thirty, but still....

“No,” Her musing tone draws you out of your self-reproach. “You’re quite handsome.”

You’re amazed by her directness and it probably shows on your face.

“...For a man of your age.” She adds after a long beat, and smiles into her glass as she takes another drink. You chuckle quietly, and drink as well.

And the two of you talk for over an hour, discussing current legislation and hopes for the future — all off the record, of course. Her insights are amazing to hear first-hand, and her honest interest in your own thoughts makes you soon forget how famous she is. She’s another person, just like you, with a whole life and history of her own — a story you’re desperate to hear that has nothing to do with your job title.

‘ _I think I’m in love with you_ ’; the words scratch and claw to get their way out of your mouth, but you’re not so drunk you’ll allow that to happen. She’s gorgeous and empowering and probably gets a lot of people telling her that — you don’t want to be just another fanboy.

She is so far out of your league.

“Anything else for you two? I’ve got to close up shop at two.” The bartender makes himself known once more, and you glance at your watch to find that it’s ten minutes til.

“Nothing for me, thank you,” Daisy replies, “Just bill it to my r— ”

“Please allow me,” You interrupt, shifting to reach into your back pocket for your wallet. “The least I could do is pay for your drinks.” She’d had two, you’d stopped after your third. You’d been planning to have a fourth, but after she arrived you found you didn’t need it, or want it.

She smiles and nods, thanking you, and the bartender thanks you for your generous tip as well. It hadn’t escaped your notice that he had given the two of you your privacy.

The pianist is finishing up and getting ready to leave as well, but the main seating area of the restaurant is open and you gesture toward one of the tables without thinking too much about it. You want to keep talking to her. You want to stretch this night out for as many minutes as you can, because you’re sure you’ll never get to speak to her like this again.

Daisy agrees with no hesitation, and you hopefully wonder that perhaps she wants to keep spending time with you because she likes your company just as much as you like hers. You pull two chairs off of one of the tabletops, and the two of you settle and return to your conversation as if nothing had interrupted it.

Two hours later, you are rendered speechless when she invites you to her room. You wonder if you’re in some kind of whiskey-induced dream, and then you fret that you’re too drunk to do what her coy expression is suggesting, but the way she holds your hand in the elevator calms you.

In the room, you realize that she is nervous as well, and you are amazed by how natural the two of you have shifted to this point; to slowly undressing one another as your hands become familiar with your bodies.

Everything is so amazing that you don’t believe it’s true, in the morning when you wake.

Except, your eyes open to a room that is not yours, and you’re completely naked.

You’re alone, though, and her bag is gone. You don’t feel jilted at all. You feel as if you’ve just lived an entire life in the span of one night.

There is a note on the table beside you, along with a glass of water and two headache tablets. You swallow them as you pick up the piece of paper (it carries with it a whiff of her perfume, and that makes you smile).

_I promise that a one-night stand wasn’t my intention, but I don’t regret where we ended up. Thank you for being real with me. I can count on one hand the people in my life who aren’t doing some kind of song and dance with me to win my attention or good graces. You did that just by being you. Don’t ever change, Jeffrey Mace. The reporter with the good heart._  
_I’m watching you sleep and wishing that I didn’t have to leave. The only reason I’m not waking you is because that I know that hangover is going to be rough, and you deserve some rest._  
_I hope to cross paths with you again, but if we don’t I want you to know something. As an Inhuman, I’m proud to have you as a voice in the papers for me. And as Daisy..._

The note ends with a carefully-placed lipstick stain against the paper. You touch the edge of it, and your smile widens.

Your phone rings from somewhere on the floor, drawing your attention back to the world around you, and you know it’s time to get back to real life. You roll out of bed to pick your trousers up off the floor and dig your phone out of the pocket.

“Mace,” It’s your boss, “Are you still in Washington? I’m booking you a flight for one p.m. I need you in Vienna.”

You put the phone on speaker as you quickly hunt down the rest of your clothes and get dressed.

“What’s in Vienna?” You wonder, distracted as you feel another unfamiliar piece of paper in your trouser pocket.

It was Daisy’s handwriting, again. A phone number.

_Give me a call if you find yourself in the same town as me._

“U.N. meeting. No official word yet, but I have solid confirmation that it has to do with a change on the Sokovia Accords. Something big, and I’m betting related to Inhumans specifically.”

“I’ll be there,” You promise, slipping Daisy’s number back into your pocket.  
  


**———**

 

You finger your glass of whiskey as you dread what’s about to come within the hour. It was what you’ve been dreading the moment you were pushed into this job. You’re so nervous, you can’t even bring yourself to drink more than one mouthful of your preferred liquor.

She’d been dark, undercover on a mission for the past four months. She probably knew everything about you and what you were doing now, but you haven’t spoken to her. Haven’t interacted in any way, not since... not since your life was flipped upside down.

Phil Coulson was her handler, he’d managed all the contact mission-wise so you didn’t have to, but now that she’s back, you can’t hide from her. You have to face her, sooner rather than later.

“When I heard who you were, I couldn’t believe it at first.” Her voice behind you makes your heart ache and memories come rushing through your mind unbidden. You’ve heard her voice over the past year, of course, but being in her presence now makes you think of nothing except the way your bodies fit together so well.

You leave your drink and turn to face her, because you have to.

Her familiarity makes you feel like you’re about to break in two, and the expression on her face tells you that she feels something of the same.

Notably, she keeps her distance.

“Your suits have gotten nicer.” She notices.

“Perks of the job.” You reply, both of you with strained calmness.

She considers you, not unlike that first time she did so in a hotel bar, and then she steps toward you. You hold your breath, and she holds out her hand.

“Director,” She greets, and her tone tells you that she is not finished, so you hold her hand and you wait. (You want any excuse not to let go yet.) “Are there rules against fraternization?”

You pause, letting her words wash over you and settle. Your drink sits unfinished behind you and her hand is strong and warm against yours. You don’t seem to be waking up, so perhaps this isn’t a dream.

You shake your head ‘no’ slowly, and she smiles and tightens her grip on your hand. Then she’s tugging you close and you’re kissing and you know you’ll never stop loving her.

* * *

 


End file.
